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Thursday, November 11, 2010

After playing a solid first period and grabbing the lead in the first period of tonight's 5-4 shootout loss to the Sabres, the Devils started sloppily in the second period -- a period in which they have now been outscored 27-10 this season.

The Sabres made them pay with goals 13 seconds apart from Jason Pominville and Derek Roy. After that, Devils coach John MacLean had seen enough and called his timeout.

It was not a time for soothing words.

"There were a few expletives," MacLean admitted.

He said the timeout had nothing to do with goaltender Johan Hedberg.

"I wasn't concerned with Heddy," MacLean said. "I was more concerned with our players. Heddy, I thought he played well. The second one might have been the only one that he would have liked to have back. But (the tiimeout) was more to talk to the players."

MacLean said he was as angry as "probably that you've seen."

He thought the anger he showed was warranted.

"I don't regret showing it," he said. "I felt it called for it at that time."

And it seemed the team responded to it with David Clarkson scoring the goal that tied the game at 2:23 later.

"They came out and they got going again," MacLean said. "You can do it once it a while, but you have to know when to do it. We got a goal quickly after that."

The Devils' players also though the timeout was deserved.

"We had a few too many mistakes in our own end," Devils captain Jamie Langenbrunner said. "We had that little fall asleep (time) there in the second for five minutes where they took control. Then, we battled back and do what we needed to do and then it was a tough play. We lost a guy on the fourth (Buffalo) goal. Then, you go to a shootout and it's a coin flip."

***Hedberg gave up four goals on 42 shots. He made seven saves in overtime alone.

When asked if he thought he played well, Hedberg replied, "I don't know."

"I think that I had a good feeling playing," he said. "Actually, sometimes you say as a forward that you just put your head down and you go as hard as you can. I tried to do that too tonight. I kept battling, battling, battling and hoped for the best. It was two desperate teams maybe searching a bit to get on track and we battled hard out there."

Of the two goals he gave up in 13 seconds in the second period, Hedberg said, "It wasn't fun, but it didn't bother me for the rest of game. It was a good timeout by Johnny Mac right after to settle the troops down. Then (David Clarkson) scored that great goal to get it back to 2-2.".

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.